Sinclair ZX80 / ZX81 / Z88 Forums

Cheers Mark, I'll see what I can do without removing the pcb. Pretty much exhausted all audio playing devices I can get my hands on - none of them have got even a twinge out of the ZX81. Hardly a scientific process but given how many people on the Internet seem to load tapes from mp3 players and PCs...

Ok, since you've all terrified me when it comes to opening this thing up, I'm going to leave that as a last resort and first try every other audio playing device I have access to.

Video & tape output (MIC) share an ULA pin (unbelievably this works btw), tape input (EAR) goes through another -dedicated- ULA pin. So it could be dead with video output & SAVE working fine. Aaah. That makes sense. Cheers. Yeah... funny how back in the 80's, this was fun & games for the masses, an...

Hi RT, thanks for the welcome and for the tips. At various points, I've been able to use headphones and listen in. Generally everything seems good - a period of silence (does the ZX81 wait for exactly five seconds of it?) followed by all the screeches sounding pretty normal. I've tried every volume ...

Hi all, I'm hoping to pick a few brains. A friend of mine has lent me his recently acquired ZX81 which he's never really used since he doesn't have a tape player for. I've tried loading tapes from an iPhone and a PC (running WinTzx) both directly and through a Xenyx powered mixer (built-in pre-amps ...